Tag: brain

It’s been a busy month. Presented a talk in lab and at the UW Honors Research Colloquium, and bringing a poster to the UW Undergraduate Research Symposium, had 2 papers and 2 midterms. All in the first 10 days of May.

I Puritani is next week; it will be the last opera of the season, and I don’t yet know for sure whether I will renew my subscription. Opera is a magnificent thing, but it costs a lot of money. It can be a difficult expense to justify.

Art itself, in fact, begs for justification. As long as it remains quiet, unoffensive, cute and trite, art draws no criticism, and indeed hardly any attention at all. Putting aside constraining definitions of art itself, what is its purpose? And more to the point, does expression have limits?

Wafaa Bilal’s minor modification of Night of Bush Capturing, in turn a modification by the Global Islamic Media Front (likely a media arm for Al-Qaeda) of Quest for Saddam, a game created by Jesse Petrilla, a conservative American citizen, drew great ire from conservatives in Troy, NY where Bilal was exhibiting his work (sorry for the complex arrangement of subordinate clauses). The ignorance and failure of reason here is staggering. The original American-made game perpetuates negative stereotypes and ignorant hatred of its targets; the Global Islamic Media Front modification simply turns it on its head, and reflects back upon us how inaccurate and harmful such portrayals can be. And Bilal, in placing his own likeness into the game, is expressing how easily the attitude of those orchestrating and supporting the Iraq War can contribute to the disillusionment and even defection of people who previously had nothing to do with Al-Qaeda. Such perspective ought to be valued, not vilified.

And what of Burma/Myanmar (it doesn’t matter which name is more “correct;” the politics of language is always problematic)? Does coercive humanitarian aid (a rather awkward and loaded construction) constitute a perpetuation of Western Imperialism? Many Colonial and Imperialist endeavors have been attached to ostensibly noble goals.

If nothing else, the hesitation of the United States to even undertake supply airdrops without the permission of the Burmese government highlights the utter hypocrisy and ruthlessness of the Iraq War.

On a lighter note, Nate finished building his computer. But Linux drivers… :effort:

My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go.

Apparently we are collaborating with a lab in Germany on the Tbr2 OB project, something which is entirely news to me, and Rebecca is also now onboard with the project. So this very quickly went from a little inconsequential project of mine into a much more substantial piece of research in which I will play an appropriately small part. Nice.

Everyone in WA should go caucus tomorrow. Even though (or because?) it sounds a little naughty. And in spite of the ludicrosity (though my dictionary doth protest, this should be a word) of the way elections work in Great Nation of America.

After/while listening to Mitt Romney deliver his spiel before announcing that he would suspend his bidgive up, I decided that I really just don’t “get” those millions of conservatives in America. I mean seriously, are they delusional? Have they never actually encountered the real world? The platforms that these conservatives run on are constructed entirely out of fantasies and ridiculous claims. For instance, Romney said something about American “culture” being attacked. I wonder if any of his supporters can even tell us what American culture is. There are some really ignorant people in this country.

FBLEND looks like it’s about to rock your world. Well actually it won’t, but it will rock some sociologist’s world (and with any luck, more than one) and that’s really all that matters, right?

While Antonello Palombi delivered a wonderful Canio, it has become rather apparent to me that there is a reason why the legendary tenors are so well known. As emotional and powerful of a performance as Palombi gave, there is no voice like Caruso’s. Domingo’s Canio ranks up there, along with possibly Lanza or Di Stefano, but I still maintain that Caruso’s performance was the best.

Palombi was good though.

Also, annoyingly enough, Bagley, et al (2007) report that “adult-generated neurons express markers of all major subtypes of neurons in the GLL and GCL.” Great. Oh and NeuN doesn’t mark all neurons in the GLL. I’ve never even heard of Neurotrace.

I hope to capture something of art, science, and life. I’m actually not entirely sure what that statement even means, but nevertheless I will probably fail miserably (and with any luck, spectacularly).

Regarding the URL. There is overwhelming evidence that neurogenesis occurs in two areas of the adult mammalian brain – the subgranular zone of the dentate gyrus and the subventricular zone; neurons produced in the latter region reach the olfactory bulb via the rostral migratory stream. Evidence of adult neurogenesis in other regions of the brain is not as clear. “Neurogenesis” was taken so I had to settle for “neurogenetic.”

Tonight the Seattle Opera closes its production of Leoncavallo’sPagliacci. The two-act opera is best known (and to some, only known) for the aria Vesti la giubba. Enrico Caruso does the best Canio, particularly when it comes to this aria. There is no substitute. However, his No! Pagliaccio non son is not as good as the former. Something about Vesti la giubba is just so well suited to his voice.